And who provided the risk capital necessary to start the business that created the job? You know the answer. No one who’s ever started a business – and put their own capital at risk to do so – would ask these questions.
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Dave,
We are talking about two entirely different classes here.
When I refer to “rich” or “wealthy” people, I am not talking about the small business owner who invests his life’s savings and dilligently works to create a new company or product…and benefits from his/her efforts.
If an owner wants to establish a sole proprietorship, I couldn’t care less what he/she earned or what the disparity was between his income and the income of the rest of the employees. If the owner is solely and personally responsible for the losses, and if that owner truly puts **his own** (not borrowed, not other investor’s) money on the table, he deserves all the reward. No disagreement there at all.
Where we disagree is that I believe most truly “rich” people do NOT put their own money at risk, and they are NOT the people who create and build bussinesses. They are the parasites (executives, investors, etc.) who either buy or come into an existing **corporation** that sheilds them from personal responsibility, and proceed to direct all the profits into their own pockets, leaving an empty shell of a once-great company behind. They do nothing to benefit society at large, and collude with other like-minded people who keep close watch over the “circle of winners” and their money flows. These are the “capitalists” I rail against, and I have yet to see a convincing argument that would convince me that they are in any way beneficial or useful to society.
If you look at companies run by entrepreneurs versus the “corporatists,” you’ll see that the people who created the businesses do not make many, many multiples more than most of their employees. For the most part, you only see this behavior in the large corporations where the risk of the company’s failing does not severely, adversely affect the executives (they are not emotionally attached to the company because they didn’t start and grow it, and/or they are protected by laws of incorporation from any liability if the company fails).
I think it’s important for us as a society to rethink what we are trying to reward, and how we go about doing it.
